How to stop medical forfeits?

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This way of doing things is cowardly to say the least. It’s crazy in a sport considered to be so tough that the coaches lack courage to let their wrestler compete against the best. These coaches need to stop this pigeon-hearted, soft, and weak practice. Very sad to see the sport going in this direction. How do we change this?

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I agree. We need to make sure these guys wrestle while injured. I like how we already punish a wrestler for taking injury time during the match too. Wouldn't want those athletes who are actually injured to get the rest and attention they deserve.

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I agree. We need to make sure these guys wrestle while injured. I like how we already punish a wrestler for taking injury time during the match too. Wouldn't want those athletes who are actually injured to get the rest and attention they deserve.

Everyone agrees that if someone is actually injured that they shouldnt be competing man. But do you really think that people arent abusing the medical forfeits?

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This way of doing things is cowardly to say the least. It’s crazy in a sport considered to be so tough that the coaches lack courage to let their wrestler compete against the best. These coaches need to stop this pigeon-hearted, soft, and weak practice. Very sad to see the sport going in this direction. How do we change this?

Count it as a loss. It is the simplest and most effective way. The fact that it is a way to check out of tourneys with no consequence is why it is being abused. There needs to be a consequence.

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Everyone agrees that if someone is actually injured that they shouldnt be competing man. But do you really think that people arent abusing the medical forfeits?

Of course they're abusing medical forfeits. Create a solution that doesnt punish legitimately injured athletes and I'll be on board. Ya'll got pissed off about lung timeouts and guys would have to give up position after getting poked in the eye.

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Count it as a loss. It is the simplest and most effective way. The fact that it is a way to check out of tourneys with no consequence is why it is being abused. There needs to be a consequence.

I'd like to hear the arguments against this. What could they possibly be? So what, your guy got injured and lost as a result, big deal. Everyone loses (except Cael). Hasn't stopped anyone else from becoming 4x, 3x, 2x, or even 1x champs. Losses happen. Some due to injury, some not. In a tournament setting at least, why should there be a distinction between injuries that prevent completing a match and injuries that prevent completing your next match?

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I'd like to hear the arguments against this. What could they possibly be? So what, your guy got injured and lost as a result, big deal. Everyone loses (except Cael). Hasn't stopped anyone else from becoming 4x, 3x, 2x, or even 1x champs. Losses happen. Some due to injury, some not. In a tournament setting at least, why should there be a distinction between injuries that prevent completing a match and injuries that prevent completing your next match?

The only arguement is that someone actually injured can't take advantage of the current application of forfeiting. What are we going to do when someone accomplishes what Cael did, by going undefeated but has a handful of forfeits and ducks? Cael never missed a match.

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It is obviously a problem. There is no easy solution. On the one hand, an injured sthlete’s well-being should be the highest priority. Counting medical forfeits as losses incentivizes injured athletes to compete while injured and risk further or even catastrophic injury. On the other hand, it is easy to abuse the current system since a very mildly injured, or worse, an uninjured wrestler (or his coach) can easily forfeit with impunity.

Like the OP, I hate how this is being abused but don’t have a good solution.

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And there may be a different solution depending on whether it's an open or conference event. No reason to risk anything at an open. Some people simply have to leave or their trainers only want them to wrestle a certain number of bouts. But a conference event has different priorities.

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Count it as a loss. It is the simplest and most effective way. The fact that it is a way to check out of tourneys with no consequence is why it is being abused. There needs to be a consequence.

Yes just count it as a simple loss. Let's say you are early season Vegas tournament and MFF on front side of bracket to exit the tournament it would simply be 1 loss. This does not penalize a kid who really is hurt, because if you really were hurt you would lose the match if you wrestled it. Lets say you MFF semis of qualifying tournament down to say 6th place just to guarantee you go to NCAA then it should be 3 losses, or the appropriate # depending on where initiated and final spot. Again this doesn't penalize guys who are legitimately injured, you still make the tournament and have ~two weeks to recover, but it does now impact more than two of the seeding criteria so discourages the cheap ducking.

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Yes just count it as a simple loss. Let's say you are early season Vegas tournament and MFF on front side of bracket to exit the tournament it would simply be 1 loss. This does not penalize a kid who really is hurt, because if you really were hurt you would lose the match if you wrestled it. Lets say you MFF semis of qualifying tournament down to say 6th place just to guarantee you go to NCAA then it should be 3 losses, or the appropriate # depending on where initiated and final spot. Again this doesn't penalize guys who are legitimately injured, you still make the tournament and have ~two weeks to recover, but it does now impact more than two of the seeding criteria so discourages the cheap ducking.

Ok count the forfeits at conference as losses in the seeding process, and not on the record.

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Ok count the forfeits at conference as losses in the seeding process, and not on the record.

I would make it simple, just count any/all MFF as a loss. Again, its only going to be 1 loss if you do it in a non Q tournament. And yes it counts on the record, it counts as a head to head, it counts as a tournament placement etc.

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I would make it simple, just count and/all MFF as a loss. Again, its only going to be 1 loss if you do it in a non Q tournament. And yes it counts on the record, it counts as a head to head, it counts as a tournament placement etc.

It doesn't deal with ducking duals though, which up until the conferences was the issue. Frankly, I hate injuries obviously. They suck, but we can't reward people for being injured either. Not competing should be weighted against the athlete, but it also shouldn't drop you to 33rd seed. I think the best way to fix this is add more of a human element as in get the media involved. People don't like flo, but I truly believe if Christian Pyles would have been involved in the seeding we would have a lot less people unhappy.

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although a collegiate discussion, a similar issue impacts HS, especially since medical forfeits are not a recognized NFHS result, as each state interprets tournament forfeits in a different manner (if addressed at all). while it was a question this year on the NFHS survey, since it may not be resolved for HS in the near future, some states are trying to differentiate between a wrestler who actually becomes injured in a tourney, as opposed to the proverbial ducks. my proposal is that one "medical forfeit" should count as a loss on your record UNLESS YOUR IMMEDIATELY PRIOR MATCH ENDS VIA INJURY DEFAULT. This would allow a wrestler who was injured and unable to finish a match (and therefore took a loss on their record) to then take no additional losses on their record. It would also allow a wrestler who is injured via an illegal move and is unable to continue (and who wins by default) to avoid taking a loss in their subsequent match, if they are unable to return to action. As it relates to the recent situations, Rasheed would need to take a loss in the finals, while Micic would take 1 loss in the semis (but not for subsequent forfeits in consi semis and 5th place matches). Anyone who lost by injury default (couldn't find one in a quick search of brax) would not take an additional loss on record for subsequent forfeits.

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Duals are a completely different issue, IMO - it should be a coach's perogative to substitute another guy on the depth chart into the lineup, especially in a situation where the team score is essentially decided. This is different than having a starter enter a tournament and then forfeit out.

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Duals are a completely different issue, IMO - it should be a coach's perogative to substitute another guy on the depth chart into the lineup, especially in a situation where the team score is essentially decided. This is different than having a starter enter a tournament and then forfeit out.

Maybe. I do think it has to be factored in somewhere. Maybe heavily weighted in at the conference tourneys since they are a qualifier? Just using this as an example, but Joseph not wrestling Wick could affect that seed to which will be worked out by the time they get to nationals. Just throwing out ideas now.

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Count the first-MFF at Conference meets as a loss for the purpose of seeding at the NCAA Tourney. For instance, Micic MFF at the Semis, that is 1 loss, not the 3 total, and it is only utilized by the NCAA seeding committee for the purpose of seeding.

1 loss, in most cases, will not harm a wrestler too much on seeding. If he is injured--truly hurt--then he is benefiting by MFF to keep a higher seed and thus perhaps less competition in the early rounds of the NCAA. By assigning a loss, he may drop 1 or 2 spots, and perhaps have a more difficult road.

The OP is correct.....no easy solution to a growing problem that many coaches seem to favor for a variety of reasons. The above at least discourages one of those reasons.

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It doesn't deal with ducking duals though, which up until the conferences was the issue. Frankly, I hate injuries obviously. They suck, but we can't reward people for being injured either. Not competing should be weighted against the athlete, but it also shouldn't drop you to 33rd seed. I think the best way to fix this is add more of a human element as in get the media involved. People don't like flo, but I truly believe if Christian Pyles would have been involved in the seeding we would have a lot less people unhappy.

I know several years ago I discussed this with Coach Smith at Mizzou. He seemed to think there was some support for counting forfeits in duals as 7 or 8 points rather than 6, to discourage unnecessary forfeiting. While that might unfairly penalized programs with small roster caps/non-fully funded/etc., those programs are obviously not that overly concerned with dual wins/losses in the first place. It would also impact the potential for athletes to lose their redshirt option, but that would be a coaches' decision, same as it is now, albeit with greater consequences for the team, as well as the individual athlete.

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I know several years ago I discussed this with Coach Smith at Mizzou. He seemed to think there was some support for counting forfeits in duals as 7 or 8 points rather than 6, to discourage unnecessary forfeiting. While that might unfairly penalized programs with small roster caps/non-fully funded/etc., those programs are obviously not that overly concerned with dual wins/losses in the first place. It would also impact the potential for athletes to lose their redshirt option, but that would be a coaches' decision, same as it is now, albeit with greater consequences for the team, as well as the individual athlete.

Unless the team got overwhelmed with the plague, which college team is forfeiting anyways? While I agree with this idea, it doesn't really solve the problem, as all large programs have a Perez Perez in the backround that can atleast step on the mat.

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I think it should count as a "loss" vs the wrestler but not on the record as a loss. Its too tough to get a straight answer if a MFF is legit or not. I feel an official loss to the record is a bit much... Maybe we can say its a win for the non "hurt" wrestler and a "tie" for the hurt one. So we would add a new dimension into rankings and record. Someone could be 15-0-3 (15 wins, no losses and 3 MFF's). Just need to figure out how they count it against a wrestler in rankings but I feel something like this may be most fair.

I have not been following the thread, sorry for any reused ideas.

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Unless the team got overwhelmed with the plague, which college team is forfeiting anyways? While I agree with this idea, it doesn't really solve the problem, as all large programs have a Perez Perez in the backround that can atleast step on the mat.

Mostly true, but even the biggest programs sometimes find themselves with only a redshirting freshman available as a back up. Perhaps auto qualifications should be based on every individual team's record at a given weight, combined with MFF counting as losses. That way if a team forfeits a dual, or ducks and wrestles a back up, the back up's loss counts against the eventual qualifier come seeding time. We could have an official injured reserve list that would exempt guys with legit injuries that cause them to miss say 2 or more weeks of competition.

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I think it should count as a "loss" vs the wrestler but not on the record as a loss. Its too tough to get a straight answer if a MFF is legit or not. I feel an official loss to the record is a bit much... Maybe we can say its a win for the non "hurt" wrestler and a "tie" for the hurt one. So we would add a new dimension into rankings and record. Someone could be 15-0-3 (15 wins, no losses and 3 MFF's). Just need to figure out how they count it against a wrestler in rankings but I feel something like this may be most fair.

I have not been following the thread, sorry for any reused ideas.

I get that we don't want to penalize injured wrestlers, but we have run into this before. A couple years back we decided to start penalizing wrestlers for injury time. Is it ideal? No, but it needed to happen to protect the integrity of the sport from people gaming the system. We are getting to a point again where we need to start penalizing forfeits because the acts of the few at the expense of everyone else. It it ideal? No, but probably needs to happen.

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I know several years ago I discussed this with Coach Smith at Mizzou. He seemed to think there was some support for counting forfeits in duals as 7 or 8 points rather than 6, to discourage unnecessary forfeiting.

If they start counting forfeits at duals as 7 or 8 points, the coach is just going to run a warm body out there to save 1-2 team points at worst. But it does give the opponent a win as opposed to a forfeit.